Felicity Jones “I feel my job is almost like becoming a monk or a nun - it’s a calling”

It’s been a meteoric rise from Chalet Girl to leading a rebellion in the new Star Wars franchise – but what’s the force behind Oscar-nominated actress, Felicity Jones? Nick Morgan goes on a mission to find out

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PHOTOGRAPH JAY L CLENDENIN/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES

Felicity Jones was ‘working’ as a maid scrubbing the scum from showers when I first met her. This month, she’s graduated to beating up Storm troopers, stealing the blueprints to the original Death Star space station and generally saving the universe.

A few years ago, I interviewed the up-and-coming actress in the Austrian ski resort of St Anton, while she was filming Chalet Girl. We met in her caravan and sat opposite one another at the fold-down table. She looked the part, fresh from the set in her purple chalet maid’s uniform, bare-faced and with ‘dragged backwards through a hedge’ tousled hair.

She pre-empted my questions before I asked them – her father was a journalist, so maybe she has a nose for it. Later, she says of my profession, ‘Interviewing someone is similar to preparing a character, isn’t it? You’re just asking questions: “Who’s this person? Why did they make that choice? Why are they doing that?” You’re being Sherlock Holmes.’* So, there we were, sitting in a mobile home in the heart of Tirol, surrounded by the Alps covered with crispy white snow; Jones is a megastar-in-the-making pretending to be a chalet girl and, as far as she’s concerned, I’m doing an impression of a fictional detective. In this profile, I investigate what makes this girl tick… tick… tick.